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Apr 1, 2011

Irish Government Recycling Project

The Irish Government has this morning announced that its recycling program will be expanded to include the pickup and processing of the broken and discarded dreams of South Dublin residents.

"It's a huge leap forward" said Environment minister, Phil Hogan, "This new scheme to help reduce and recycle the dashed hopes of approximately 1/4 million upper middle-class Dubliners will finally give us a practical way to regulate the ever increasing overflow of crushing suburban disillusionment."

Under the new system, dreams that are outdated or unreachable must be broken down into manageable rectangles, bundled with twine and set out on the path next to the large Green Bins.

Dreams that have been shattered into hundreds or thousands of small pieces must be tightly bagged and marked with special industrial orange "FAILURE" stickers in order to ensure the protection of Bin collectors.

Reactions have been mixed.

"I was a partner in a top Architects firm," said Greg Masters, 46, of Foxrock. "But when my firm hired a young, hot-shot school graduate who was willing to work twice my hours for half the pay, I was put out to pasture. Then my drinking started getting out of control, and my wife took the kids and left me. I'll be glad to see my wasted dreams put out on the curb next to the bottles."

Dalkey resident Hugh Cronin agreed. "I wanted to raise my son to be a doctor, but he wasn't interested. All the money spent on private tutoring and college prep courses was for nothing when he dropped out of school and became a musician," Cronin said. "At least now I feel like I'm doing my part to help the environment."

Under the new program, though recycling of dreams will be mandatory, exceptions will be made for those who have nothing else to hold onto. Residents with no other coping mechanism in their lives — no extramarital affairs, no obsessive shopping habits — will be excused from the recycling program if they should so request.